shell chandy

please forgive me if you have one of these (hideous) chandeliers.i think they came in every track home in the 90’s, so it’s really not your fault.

my mom found one of these “lovelies” awhile back for a few bucks and had a vision for it – covered in shells.first she spray painted the whole thing in whatever whitish spray paint i had.oh, actually first she covered the electrical parts with paper and tape.don’t spray those!

then she had this really thick twine from my gramps’ garage that she used to wrap the arms of the chandelier.regular twine would work, too.

when the kids were asleep, we broke out the shells and sea glass she’d been collecting forever, the glue guns, and a big tarp.we started with the big ball part at the bottom, just layering the biggest shells first, covering as much area as we could with them.

then we filled in the empty spots with smaller shells and the pretty stuff – like coral and starfish.

the next ball up we covered in only sea glass.oh yeah – we did all this with hot glue, and burned ourselves way too many times!

we also covered each of the little cups that hold the lights in shells.

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Comments

That looks great! My mom had one from her 1991 built home and I spray painted the entire thing, it was horrible. Hers had a white space in the middle with pink and blue flowers, an "upgrade." It was so, so bad. Loving the shells!~Michelle

we totally have a hideous chandelier in our new house, but it's the metal one (similar to your moms) with the nasty glass covering it. I'm going to try and remove the class "shade" and paint the metal and find lampshades for the bulbs…i'm a little nervous, but it can't get any worse than it already is! ha!

Beep, beep, back the bus UP!!!!!!!!! That….is….amazing. You guys must be so tickled with that. So when people come over and everyone is just standing, staring at the ceiling instead of looking at each other, we can all understand perfectly why. I really, really do love this. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, I just love this so much! The best part of it is that you used something old (and ever so slightly tacky) to make something new and lovely! I giggled when I read about your mom channeling her inner hippie – hee! Thanks for the inspired and truly lovely idea!

slow motion – i don't think you need to sand the surface. even though it is really shiny, you won't really be handling the chandelier much once it's hung, so paint scratching off shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks to Maya at Completely Coastal, I found you blog! This is an ingenious project and doesn't look as labor intensive as the typical shell chandelier. Thank you for the very detailed tutorial. Now, I'm going to go look around your other posts!

Thanks to Maya at Completely Coastal, I found you blog! This is an ingenious project and doesn't look as labor intensive as the typical shell chandelier. Thank you for the very detailed tutorial. Now, I'm going to go look around your other posts!

Hi Lindsey-I am so glad I found your blog thru Laurie at Tip Junkie. I just love what you did to the chandelier. It is so unique, clever, and well done. When I move into my dream house on the water. I am making this. Diane

You can also remove that extra hideous round thing from the chandelier by unscrewing from the bottom until it’s released then replacing the finial. I am actually collecting the “round things” to make a cool modern table lamp using them all stacked up. :)

Wow, I’ve had so many of these canned rental chandeliers… Can’t even remember how many or just exactly HOW I’ve personalized them!!! This is a wonderful idea… Was originally planning on learning to make a monkey’s fist ceiling fan pull, but you all bring my idea to a whole new level w your ideas!!! Yay!!! I live in north Florida so the shells are totally doable… Still, I’m renting, so I need to make a new chandy that won’t damage the original… Security deposit always on my mind!!! :))) twine wrap:YES! Ceiling fan pull:YES! Hot glue n shells?….. I’ll think of SOMETHING! What an awesome blog! So happy to have stumbled upon this!! (I noticed that this post is years old, but new to me and I love stuff like this!!!) gonna look around a bit! Thanks for the fresh inspiration!!!!